Per AZ Capitol Times (yes, behind a paywall but I pay for my subscription so I get to talk about it):
Gov. Doug Ducey may have just cost more than 200,000 Arizonans a shot at keeping the health insurance they received through the Affordable Care Act, though they won’t know for sure until the U.S. Supreme Court rules this summer.
Ducey has signed HB2643, which prohibits Arizona or any of its political subdivisions from using taxpayer dollars or personnel to establish a state-run health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. Arizona is one of 34 states using a federally run exchange after declining to set up a state-run exchange of its own.
Arizona bill SB1318, which requires doctors to pass on medically dubious information about “abortion reversal”, also bans coverage of abortion in private insurance plans, even if a policy holder has purchased an entirely separate rider with her own money which does not sully the pristine money of “taxpayers” – a group that (again) apparently does not include women who use any reproductive health care not directly related to having babies.
The bill went for third read on the House floor, the last step before before being transmitted to Governor Ducey, who is certain to sign it, and was passed on a 33/24 party line vote. I listened to the testimony at work and heard the Democrats valiantly (as always) trying to explain why it was a bad idea on several levels Republican Rep. Steve Montenegro waxed lugubriously about the need to “do everything possible to ensure a child has every opportunity to have it’s first breath!” and Rep. JD Mesnard anti-choicesplained, “We all know how accounting gimmicks work!” (He clearly doesn’t.)
Arizona drivers licenses aren’t compliant with new federal Real ID requirements to board airplanes and a change to a state law (passed a few years ago to assuage the fears of the black helicopter crowd) is necessary to correct that. Our conservative-led legislature, naturally, is a averse to this so the AZ Republic ed board was recently reduced to begging readers to contact Speaker of the House David Gowan to relent.
It shouldn’t have come to this. A Legislature that puts Arizonans first would have passed this bill weeks ago. Residents wouldn’t have to cross their fingers that an answer will be found.
Safe Park Associate Director Maggie Downey stands at the door to the Safe Park “office”. The office has referral forms for city services, lists of bathrooms the homeless can use during the day, bus schedules and more.
Safe Park– the homeless camp located on the sidewalks of downtown Tucson– has been a political hot potato since a Tucson District Court ruled the sidewalk protest was protected speech in December 2014. With that ruling, Safe Park grew and coffin-like boxes called “dream pods” started rolling in–much to the dismay of city and county leaders and local businesses.
Debates raged– in the Arizona Daily Star, on Facebook, on the streets, and in multiple Tucson Mayor and Council meetings– about the validity Safe Park as a “protest”, the moral character of the primary leader, the overarching problem of homelessness, and what the city could or should do about the situation. Park residents and the City Council have been in negotiations to move Safe Park from the sidewalks of the Rio Nuevo business district to another a vacant lot within a mile of downtown, where this homeless community could camp and have access to bathrooms and showers. Safe Park Director and long-time homeless spokesperson, Jon McClane had asked for a homeless camp in each ward, but said that they were willing to move if the city could find a spot not far from downtown.
As the search for a suitable city-owned lot continued, recent developments have changed the political landscape. Police conducted a sting drug operation near Veinte de Agosto Park and arrested McClane and others on charges of possession of marijuana and possession for sale. The Arizona Daily Star. continued its character assassination against McClain, dredging up stories about his children and painting him as a charismatic opportunist, rather than a crusader. The US District Court Judge, who initially called Safe Park protected speech, issued a clarification that allows the city to remove the dream pods and tents. The latest news is that Safe Park dream pods and tents must be removed by Friday, March 13.
This blog post isn’t about the ongoing homeless controversy or the integrity of any of the leaders. It’s about the people I met at Safe Park last Thursday night.
Governor Doug Ducey and Republican leadership in the Legislature made headlines and sparked street protests this week when they tried to ram through a starvation budget that was negotiated in secret.
The wrong-headed budget starved universities with $104 million-dollar in cuts; it stole even more money from K-12 education with a $98 million hit this year and another $157 million hit in the next year; just for fun, it cut an additional $8-15 from TUSD; it crippled job training with $30 million in cuts; it completely defunded community colleges in Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa Counties; it cut provider rates for people who provide medical care to Medicaid/AHCCCS patients by $127 million (which would result in the loss of $588 million of federal funds). And these are just the highlights.
This severe austerity budget will do nothing to grow the economy. It will starve the economy by taking more than a billion dollars out. This means more lay-offs, more bankruptcies, more business failures, more home foreclosures, more poverty, people on on public assistance, more homelessness, more crime, more incarceration, and more people and businesses leaving our state.
When Republicans talk about budgeting, they often give folksy example of a family sitting around the kitchen table to work out the budget and decide together how they are going to tighten their belts and make ends meet. Didn’t anyone at the kitchen table ever say, “Paw, I could get another job to bring in more money”?
Earlier this year, the media speculated how Ducey could possibly keep his campaign promise of balancing the budget without raising taxes and at the same time allow hundreds of millions of dollars in unaffordable planned corporate tax cuts (passed during the Brewer era) to go forward. (Besides all that, there is the court order that said the Legislature unlawfully cut Arizona school funding and should pay back $317 million in this budget and $1.6 billion in the future.)
Earlier this year, Ducey famously said, just because we don’t have enough money, doesn’t mean we need to raise revenue. Why not? Putting money into the economy grows it; taking money out, starves it. Arizona has options besides austerity. We can raise revenue and pay for the services we want: 1) legalize marijuana; 2) establish a public bank; 3) stop implementation of unaffordable tax cuts for out-of-state corporations; 4) invest in innovation.
